Our intrepid adventuring party is looking to add one more member to its ranks. Having just finished plumbing the depths of a hidden Sea Prince shrine to Dagon, demonic Prince of the Abyss, the party is just finishing up around town before a planned return Kraken Cove to investigate the origins of the Savage Tide before setting sail for the mysterious Isle of Dread.
The current party consists of:
Shane, male half-elf Swashbuckler 4/Rogue 1
Walton, male half-orc Mystic Warrior 4/Ranger 1
Reyth, female human Sorcerer 5
Detroit, male sea dwarf Fighter 5
Corwyn, male human Cleric 5
System: Savage Tide was written as Core 3.5 adventure and that’s how we are running it. Other 3.5 source books with permission (usually OK). Pathfinder 1 feats, spells, items, and domains by permission (but usually just fine). I am open to alternate class features so long as it remains balanced.
Power Level/Style: Moderate power level and magic. I am not looking for optimizers, and the Big 6 are not at all necessary to keep up. Durable magic items are rarer than in a typical AP; one-shot or limited use items are more typical. Magic shops are quite rare and have limited selection.
Player Submission and Selection: Only a backgrounds is required at this time. No crunch is necessary except to the point that it informs something about your character. The more interesting and entertaining your character is, the better your chances of being selected. Flawed characters are totally acceptable; you do not have to min-max out combat skills or optimize your feat chain in order to contribute in play.
Where?: Note that we are using IOgroups here savagetide@groups.io | Home for posting rather than here. It is more stable and allows for easier links to maps, character sheets, embedded treasure tables and the like. Dice rolling is actually being done here on Paizo, however.
Again, no crunch is necessary at this time, but here’s how it will be done:
Character Creation
Stats: 24 point buy using Pathfinder point buy rules here http://www.myth-weavers.com/pointbuy.html. No stat can exceed 18 after racial adjustments, if any.
Fun Totally Optional Rule: After you have arrayed your points and posted them here, you may declare that to be your final stats, or optionally choose to do the following:
-- Roll 1d4 and add that to a single stat of your choice. You cannot divide up the points, and the resulting stat cannot exceed 19. If you adjust a stat to 19 and still have additional bonus points they can be added to your hit points.
-- You must also roll 1d2 and deduct the result from one random stat. Roll d6 to determine which stat: 1=STR, 2=DEX, 3=CON, 4=INT, 5 = WIS, 6=CHA
Hit Points: Maximum +1 at 1st level; roll dice thereafter, treating any result of 1 as a 2.
Wealth: TBD.
Traits: Two traits, no drawbacks.
I’ll take applications for one week or until an awesome character is submitted, whichever comes first.
Looking for a game that won’t die out in the first three months? I am currently running two campaigns, in each of which am I looking to recruit one replacement player. Details as follows:
1) Savage Tide campaign
Yes, the classic adventure featuring pirates, dinosaurs, and demons. The party is currently 3rd level and assaulting the stronghold of their hated enemies, the Lotus Dragons. We’ve lost the player of our cleric, so we’d be looking for a healer type to slide in in his place. (Ideally, the player could take over the existing character during the current assault until we can insert his or her own character)
2) Glen Gildor campaign
This one is quite tricky and calls for someone up for a serious role-playing opportunity. The character in question, Proxia, is a 9th level Paladin/Ranger, but is nearly mentally broken. As an NPC, she led a number of commands that frequently ended badly, culminating in getting her and her followers captured by gnolls. After being rescued by the PCs, she continued to have a number of setbacks, with the last being failing in her attempt to raise a dead party member. She now lacks all self- confidence and filled with self-loathing. This is great challenge for someone with looking for a heavy RP opportunity to try to take this broken character and turn her around.
As noted, both games are using 3.5 rules, including almost all supplements. Also, it should be noted that games are being run on the Yahoo Groups boards. Posting rate can vary, but ideally players post every other day or so.
I am going to be out a fair amount this weekend, so apologies in advance is my answers to your questions are somewhat delayed
I am running an online campaign in the forums and my gameplay thread is misnamed. I can not see a way to rename that particular thread within the campaign information editor.
If possible, I'd like to rename the gameplay thread to: "GM Merc's Savage Tides: Gameplay"
Starting in the port city of Sasserine, the party discovers the first clues about an impending disaster called the Savage Tide. The action then moves to the Isle of Dread for the middle portion of the series, and the party must deal with the dangers of the island and unearth more information about the Savage Tide.
I am kicking off a new Savage Tide AP, one of the classics written by Paizo and published in Dungeon magazine prior to Pathfinder being a thing. With authors such as James Jacobs, Nicolas Logue, and Richard Pett (and that’s just the first three adventures) you know it’s gonna be good.
I am looking for a group of creative and COMITTED players. With an AP this big, it’s going to run for two years at a minimum. If that sort of commitment scares you, this is probably not the game for you.
Stuff You Want to Know:
System: Savage Tide was written as Core 3.5 adventure, so that’s what I’ll be running. Other 3.5 source books with permission (usually OK). Pathfinder feats, spells, items, and domains by permission (but usually just fine). If there is a PF class that you really like, we can probably build to it with PrCs. Likewise, I am open to alternate class features so long as it remains balanced.
Power Level/Style: Moderate power level and magic. I am not looking for optimizers, and the Big 6 are not at all necessary to keep up. Durable magic items are rarer than in a typical AP; one-shot or limited use items are more typical. Magic shops are quite rare and have limited selection.
Given that the online format isn’t conducive to as much repeated combat as tabletop, that aspect with be a bit skinnied down. I also like to give players a lot of freedom, so if you take us off the standard track it is no problem at all. You can also expect that I will change up encounters somewhat, so even if you’ve played Savage Tide before there will likely be some different elements. I like pitting characters against variants, hybrids, and rarely seen monsters on occasion to keep things fresh.
Number of Players: 6-8
Player Submissions and Selection: Only backgrounds are required at this time. No crunch is necessary except to the point that it informs something about your character. The more interesting and entertaining your character is, the better your chances of being selected. And interesting and entertaining does not have to be exotic (though it can be); a human fighter with a good backstory can be just as intriguing as anyone else. Give me a rich character concept with flaws and hooks, not a series of stats. Flawed characters are totally acceptable; you do not have to min-max out combat skills or optimize your feat chain in order to contribute in play.
I would strongly suggest you check out the Savage Tide Player's Guide to get a feeling for the setting and to develop your character background. You can select one of the district Feats as a free bonus. If you have access to the six affiliations from Dragon #348 you can use those as well.
In your background, please include a notable recent event that would mark him or her as a potential up and coming adventurer.
Gaming medium: Most likely Yahoo Groups forums. I know this is a bit unusual, but I like a number of the features. It allows for both PbP directly on the forum or PBeM but having all posts forwarded to your email. All maps, character sheets, and campaign information can be stored directly on the site for easy reference all in one place. And, previous posts are easy to search if you need to find something. And, not having to add html tags is a huge bonus. One drawback is that there is no dice roller, but for folks that like to roll their own we can work that out—perhaps a board here just for that purpose.
Pace: I would be shooting for everyone to be able to post 3 times per week or more on average. More is certainly acceptable, but with job, family, and other games taking up time, sometimes things move a bit slower. If you get bored easily at that pace, this probably wouldn’t be the game for you.
Me: I’ve been running online games for many years, and I like to think I run a fair and fun game. In one game, my players’ average tenure with me is >7 years, so hopefully that is an indication I don’t suck too much. I enjoy running a creative game, my biggest hurdle is limited free time. That said, I think the shortest online game I’ve run was two years, so I’ll reiterate that I ask you only apply if you can also make that sort of commitment.
Recruitment will stay open through August 20th, but I will offer out spots as we go for outstanding submissions. In the meantime, please let me know if you have any questions.
Dergosh here. I’ll be running the Rock Eye Kobold Expedition. Just wanted to set some expectations as we get started.
PACING: We might not be moving at *quite* the same speed as we have thus far. Those of you experienced in PbP or PBeM games know things can take a while, and while I’ll do my best, my time is in much shorter supply/higher demand than I’d like. In a bit of bad timing, I’ll be traveling the next few days, but I’ll make every attempt to answer any questions and get us started.
COMBAT: I’ll try to allow everyone enough time to declare their intentions when in combat. However, if I don’t get a move from someone in a timely manner their actions will be botted. Generally this means continuing your current actions—not doing anything inherently stupid, but also not showing any clever actions. If you know you will be away for an extended period of time, please try to let me know and if possible designate one of the other players to run your character.
CHECKS: Since this already led to one person leaving unhappily, let me clarify this. I think I have a similar philosophy as chillblame: In the great majority of cases, you need to tell me if you are making a skill check, including things like Perception. Yes, sometimes I’ll automatically roll to see if you notice something, but you’ll be much safer if you tell me you are making a check. For example, Dergosh (i.e., me, thanks to me missing the clues) didn’t pick up—AT ALL-- that the heretic orc priest might cause problems, so IMO it was absolutely fair that he was flat-footed. THE TEXT IS THERE FOR A REASON AND YOUR ROLE PLAYING IT MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR ROLLS.
Additionally, I’ll award bonuses to your rolls for your characters’ clever actions or words. Make (what I judge) to be a good oral argument? Bonus to Diplomacy check. Find a way to creativity use cover? Bonus to AC. Note that these will almost always be bonuses, unless you are clearly doing something dumb. (“Hey, I’m going to pick the lock – with my feet!”; "I'm going to refuse to follow protocol and bow before the King").
OVERALL: I have a lot of experience running games, but undoubtedly I will also make mistakes, especially running something with complexity that is Pathfinder. It’s OK, we’ll get it sorted out. Just roll with it, it will all even out.
Additional Notes:
*There might be non-standard monsters, items, etc. that are unfamiliar to the characters.
*Dergosh will be run as an NPC under the control of chill; he may also join his original PC, Karol Heart Singer
So I noticed that Cloud Kingdom advertised in the last few issues...which reminded me that I wanted to steal one of the sample riddles from a previous advertisement for use in my own campaign.
Problem is, I can't for the life of me find the issues where they previosuly advertised, and I've now plowed back all the way to issue 82 and can't seem to find it. (Of course, I missed the one in #123 the first time even though I was loking for it.)
Is there any way to find out what issue numbers they previously advertised in?
